1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to online commerce conducted over a communication network such as the Internet and, more particularly, to enabling merchants to accept payments through a service provider without redirecting the consumer to the service provider.
2. Related Art
Shopping online, or electronically, has become more and more widely used, in part due to the ease with which a consumer can find items, pay, and complete a transaction without going to a seller's physical location. Such online shopping may be performed from a consumer's personal computer (PC) or laptop, for example, as well as, even more conveniently, from a mobile device, such as a smart phone. Thus, payment providers have developed payment products that enable the consumer to quickly, easily, and safely make an electronic payment for a purchase.
These payment providers, or payment products, generally require a consumer, when using a mobile app, or a web browser, to purchase items and make a payment, to be redirected to a service provider's website due to security concerns. At the service provider's website to which the consumer has been redirected, the consumer will generally be asked by the service provider to log on with a username and password in order to provide the consumer with a secure means for payment to the merchant. The user may then consent to the payment, at the service provider's site, for purchasing the item and is then redirected back to the merchant where the transaction is completed. One purpose for the redirect of the consumer to the service provider and back to the merchant is to provide the consumer more security against compromise of the consumer's service provider-username and password. In other words, it is desirable for the sake of increased security that the username (and password) used by the consumer to log on to the service provider site is not given to or passed through anyone other than the service provider. Some merchants and app developers, however, consider redirecting the customer to a third party site(e.g., the payment service provider) to be a sub-par user experience. Some app developers may even resent having to build a facility for third party redirect into their merchant app.
Embodiments of the present disclosure and their advantages are best understood by referring to the detailed description that follows. It should be appreciated that like reference numerals are used to identify like elements illustrated in one or more of the figures, in which the showings therein are for purposes of illustrating the embodiments and not for purposes of limiting them.